Join the University of Connecticut Wind Ensemble on Thursday, November 20th to explore the music of Prague. The first selection of the evening is Three Short Stories by unconventional Austrian composer Gernot Wolfgang. Three Short Stories combines jazz and Latin American music with the compositional techniques of classical and twentieth century concert music. It was originally composed as a duo for viola and bassoon. The evening’s next piece is a flute concerto, The Shadows of Sirius, by gifted and visionary American composer Joel Puckett. An avid lover of poetry, Puckett composed each movement as a reflection of one of W.S. Merwin’s poems from the collection The Shadow of Sirius. Puckett turned to Merwin’s poetry for comfort after he and his wife suffered a tragedy, and he found inspiration in the poems. The final selection is Music for Prague 1968 by Czech composer Karel Husa. Music for Prague 1968 is a fusion of traditional Czech melodies and experimental procedures. Husa was influenced by the use of wind ensembles in Prague for military bands and amateur ensembles as Gebrauchsmusik, or music that serves a particular, non-musical function. The piece was commissioned by the Ithaca College Concert Band and was composed in response to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Prague in particular.
The concert is directed by Jeffrey Renshaw, Professor of Music and Coordinator of Conducting and Ensembles. It will be held at 8pm on November 20th at the von der Mehden Recital Hall located at 875 Coventry Road across from Mirror Lake on the UConn campus. Plenty of free parking is conveniently located across the street in Lot 1.
For more information, contact: Kirk Matson at Kirk.Matson@uconn.edu